


Minutiae

by herbailiwick



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcohol, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Episode: s09e17 Mother's Little Helper, Gen, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-02
Updated: 2014-04-02
Packaged: 2018-01-17 21:18:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1402747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/herbailiwick/pseuds/herbailiwick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam doesn't usually know what he wants anymore. But, sometimes, he does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Minutiae

You smell like everything you've drank, just like I knew you would. I figured you weren't working, could hear the ambient noise of what I was pretty damn sure was a bar. 

We start looking through case files and you head off to your room for a little while, and I know you're drinking from your stash, hiding it from me, like everything else.

I take a deep breath. Business partners. You're going through...something. And I know. The way you looked at me? I've been there.

I've been researching, reading things I'd prefer not to, worrying. I had a dream last night that we were on a case and your eyes turned black and you reached into Cas and ripped out his grace, and I'm not sure what that means, but it doesn't matter, cause I won't let it get that far.

Tonight reminded me again, of what I can do. I gave people back their souls, like you did for me, but a more smooth transition, no side-effects. I punched a kid out when he stabbed a woman working at the diner. I'd considered not sitting up at the bar, but I'm glad I had. Some sort of feeling, some sort of indication that I should do that had whispered across my synapses, and I'd listened. With you around, it's hard to listen to those instincts.

Instincts. A bottle of raging instincts, sensations, irritations. That's what being soulless is like. It's weird to think about how I'm not the only one who knows. Logically, I knew I wasn't that special for it or anything, but I never thought I'd see another case, you know?

You come back, and I look up from the case files, and more time has passed than I thought, and you're kinda drunk.

"You know," you say quietly, too quietly, holding onto the last slippery edges of perfect speech. "Why wouldn't you save me?" You squint at me and judge. You're so still, and I don't like it. 

I happen to know exactly what you're talking about, what you've been thinking about for weeks, since before Kevin opened his undead trap, since before two fame-riding partners a lot like the two of us went solo, since before Crowley...whatever it is Crowley was doing, is still doing.

I stand up. "Come on," I say. 

You light up just a little bit. I'm engaging. Like with my hallucination of Lucifer, it just takes one little thing to flip that switch.

"And I thought you were a douche when you were soulless," you say. Your tongue trips over the word "douche". My mind trips over it too. I wish you wouldn't call me that when I haven't done anything. Or, at least, when I haven't done anything in, like, years, at least not on such a huge level.

"So I'm a douche." I brought a woman tea tonight. A nun.

"Right." 

I start to lead you back to the room, and you put your hand on my arm to steady yourself, and I know that all I've ever wanted to do is help take care of you, but you never like it. It's exhausting.

"You don't say that kind of thing to a guy," you point out. You're getting sleepy, like the point of contact of your hand on my jacket means we're connected, means you can relax.

It makes me want to relax too. "I didn't," I explain, knowing relaxing might cause the boundaries to slip. I've fought so hard. "I said if you didn't want it, I wouldn't do it."

"Oh."

We're almost to your room. I'm kind of jealous of it, of the way you actually designed it, actually cared. I dropped a wrapper on your floor for a reason, even if it'd taken a second to occur to me why I'd done it.

I'm always jealous of the way you know what you want now, even if what you want makes no sense. I used to know about my own goals for our downtime, all that minutiae. Now it's all a bunch of whatever. I think everyone experiences caring less about the little things the older they get, but, again, I've taken normal a step beyond into freak territory.

Par for the course.

We touch the doorknob at the same time, in weird synchronicity, and I let you at it. You finally manage to get it open, in part because you're flustered. By our closeness, by your vulnerability, by the darkness you haven't been allowed to pretend isn't there.

If anyone can get through this, it's you.

You fumble to get undressed, sitting at the edge of your bed. Memory foam. You think I've forgotten about you, right? Isn't that part of this...thing between us? You think you weren't on my mind when you were in Purgatory, or all the times you left me before that, or the times I left you.

I once told you you've never known me and never will. In part, it's true.

"So? When would you?"

"What?"

"When would you save me?"

"Really, Dean?" I choke on your name. And there's something in the teary glint of your eyes that makes me come closer until we're reality but not so close we're inexorable and merged again, and I don't stop when my mouth decides to tell you, I just don't stop. I remind you of the Reaper and the life it took. "And I didn't care!" I admit.

And the Science. "I stopped when you said to!"

And the Crossroads. "They didn't want my soul. I wish they had. Then none of it, not even...not even that first seal." I shake my head.

You have one sleeve out of your jacket and it looks so stupid as you reach out. "Sammy."

We're both sitting on the bed. I've never even  _seen_ memory foam before. "You never," I say, trying not to accuse, but I am, "believe me when I say there's nothing I wouldn't do for you."

I wake up from another weird dream I can't interpret satisfactorily. In it, you were playing pool with Crowley. I'm in the cradle of memory foam, and my shoes are still on. You're trying to get up to puke, and you need my help.

I sit with you on the ground in the too-large bathroom, yawning. There's no doubt in my mind you don't remember a thing. There's no doubt in my mind you'll start tomorrow with a clean slate and mine'll still be filthy, covered in more words, things I didn't want to admit like the fact I'm glad you're alive and some other innocent guy isn't.

You turn to look at me, eyes bright, green, too sharp like they're seeing me, and I don't have a chalkboard eraser. I just don't. You threw it away.

"You really thought about me when I was in Purgatory?"

My whole face is scratchy, and I'm crying. I could make a move to get up, but I won't. What's the point? I just sort of nod and say, "Yeah."

You shake your head and say, "You never would have bludgeoned me about dinner."

"I," I point out quickly, "I don't know. I mean, I can't know that. Soullessness...it's—"

"No," you say again. You're still seeing me. You're not stopping, and everything's heavy against my chest. I stop looking at you, start to slip my arms out of my jacket.

"You wouldn't have," you say, and I look up again, caught by you, by the way you're looking at me, big, green clean slates in your eye. 

I want one.

Your hand on my shoulder. "Sammy."

And that's the end of the moment, as you turn away. You might have a little more left to puke up, if we're lucky.

Anyway, I start to breathe again, but I kind of don't want to. I miss the moment already. 

A little part of me, though, wonders. It tries to remember, like cradling foam, itching to recall if this is what it felt like the last time.

If this is what it felt like the last time you had faith in me.


End file.
